Note: this article contains often references to the biography of Karina.

Karina was very nervous when she entered building with offices of her father in Yaroklis system. It was quite unusual state for her, but she spent enough time already with thinking…]]>Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:05:24 +0000

Note: this article contains often references to the biography of Karina.

Karina was very nervous when she entered building with offices of her father in Yaroklis system. It was quite unusual state for her, but she spent enough time already with thinking about what she is doing and what she want to do. Local office security system was active when she entered and it meant that she was here alone ... it was quite a relief for her, she had fear, despite all previous support, that father may trying to persuade her to abandon her's idea about going to a long journey "into the black". She have continued into central part of the offices and then entered the director's room. In the centre of a large, modern equipped room, was placed big wooden desk. Karina headed for it without hesitation and put on it an short hand-written letter:

Hello, Father,

I've decided to leave the Bubble and visit the Colonia region. We both knew that it will happen one day. I will try to stay in touch and will send you messages at times using Colonia connection stations. Felicia's workshop is my first stop for few latest equipment upgrades and then proceed to Mammon frontier system and its base in asteroid ... from there starts my journey to the core. When I get back, we'll have a lot to discuss.

kiss

Karina

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Note: this article contains often references to the biography of Karina.

Karina was enjoying short rest in bar in William Sargent Vision station in Synteini system after was finished outfitting of her latest ship Mammoth (T9). Suddenly has something…]]>Mon, 03 Dec 2018 12:00:30 +0000

Note: this article contains often references to the biography of Karina.

Karina was enjoying short rest in bar in William Sargent Vision station in Synteini system after was finished outfitting of her latest ship Mammoth (T9). Suddenly has something caught her attention, it was one from bar's monitors which was showing very specific scene - badly damaged station. Camera view suddenly changed, the stream was disturbed with static shocks ... on monitor have appeared man dressed in red emergency suit asking for urgent help to evacuate inhabitants of Chiang Prospect in Jambin system controlled by an anarchy faction called Jambin Blue Crew. How important information is the form of government in the system, Karina didn't knew yet, however this would be changed soon ...

Few hours later arrived into system Jambin an yellow Type-7 Transporter using Panda name which had most of internal slots filled with economy cabins. Karina set ship's course towards the Chiang Prospect and then after short fly left from the supercruise (SC). When the station came for a first time into visual range she was shocked, she never saw something like this. She asked for docking clearance and then quickly headed inside where tried to avoiding numerous explosive debris floating inside of the station. There was hot, really hot, inside there it looked like in hell, one heatsink was only barely enough to cooling Panda on her way to the designated landing pad.

Economy passenger cabins on the Panda were filled to the last place and then was ship carefully piloted towards the station exit. Karina thought that the worst was already passed, but right after leaving the station mailslot her ship shaked, shield has weakened, and ship's HUD displayed warning symbols about interference affecting sensors. Next to this appeared directly ahead of Panda small SLF (ship launched fighter) which was firing lasers on her ... "What the hell is going on?!?" was Karina's first reaction. Why should anyone attack such defenseless ship like T7 which is trying to rescue stranding people? Here's no profit, no any job which could bring hidden opponent, no political reason, ... only ... only ... Karina suddenly recalled an specific part in the long letter from her father which she read on board of her first ship Bubo. He warned her that space have many dangers and one of them are outlaws which search for destruction, dominance, and do not hesitate attacking weak targets. Karina have ironically smiled about her obvious naivety, she was so sure that met such persons is statistically impossible given galaxy size, but now it was clearly obvious to her that she was wrong. And why the station do not destroy such attacker in the no fire zone? ... All this passed through Karina's mind in just fragment of second when she in the same time launched another heatsink, put four pips into shields and FAO boosted forward while doing corkscrew maneuver. Now all the time spent with the ship preparations, engineering (eventhough just basic) and additional defenses were paid off. Karina set course to random system and initiated high-waking sequence. Ship shields were failing, but in the next moment a FSD drive has activated and T7 succesfully escaped.

After successful escape Karina immediately dropped from SC and plotted course to another system, FSD was activated and she was now safe from any persecution. Ship shield was restored to full strength and it was time to return and deliver all evacuees on the evacuation ship. Arrival at the evacuation ship, and transfer of her passengers has went smoothly. Karina decided to go for a second round and headed again to the damaged station. In the meantime she searched through sensors data and found there identification of ship which performed previous attack. It was Cutter named The Lewd Maid which should be owned by commader H2K with possible ties to terrorist group named League of Reparation. These terrorist often used anarchy systems for operate in safety against ATR ... and .. oooh ... Jambin is an anarchy system! It was clear response to her earlier question why the station defenses did nothing. "Oh well, now is the time to call for help!", she thought and sent a message using backup frequency, given her by father. "Please use it only when will be really necessary", he wrote in that time. Reply to her message came in few minutes, it was "unusually" long message "ETA 20 min". Karina reached to the damaged station and quickly headed inside, while have evading another attack ... but attacker was obviously cautious with shooting at close distance on the station, and she therefore passed into station without much damages. "Refugees boarding will take some time" she though, "so, I can wait for a message whether is area safe".

Waiting was in the end little longer and passengers on board started asking what is going on. Karina explained the situation and asked for little more patience: "it's better to wait a few more minutes than to hurry and be destroyed by an "fellow" human commander".

Finally ship's com announced incoming call: Hello Karina, all should be good now. There were in the end two outlaws, that second named Kazumih (we do not know who it is, yet) joined fight when I was here alone. But my backup arrived (two friends from Ghost Legion in FDLs) just in time, and these two swiftly fleed once saw that they may be in danger. We will stay here for some time to assure that area will stay safe. I heard that you have few new ships in time when you are space pilot ... very good! I really look forward to a time when we can meet and have had a long talk. There's so much what I want to say you, please keep safe until that time ... and if needed, just send me a message like today. Cya!

... "He really do not give me much time to say something!", have laughed Karina, while asking station for permission to leave, and then continued in rescue operation.

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Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

The Mule_ (Type-6 Transporter) was cheap small freighter able do its jobs reliably, but she was also quite fragile how have Karina learned first hand when was doing a job…]]>Tue, 31 Jul 2018 10:29:03 +0000

Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

The Mule_ (Type-6 Transporter) was cheap small freighter able do its jobs reliably, but she was also quite fragile how have Karina learned first hand when was doing a job for the SJC faction as a courier delivering strategical messages. This type of job was easy going and safe under normal circumstances, but some circumstances may be out of control of the employer. This time someone has decided to interrupt message delivery, and he also ordered skilled assassin with a strong ship. It happened in system Gilyadar where heavily armed Python, piloted by a Neil Beasant, pulled a small T6 freighter from supercruise (SC) and then destroyed her without any warning. Karina had to spent few following hours in escape capsule than was rescued by independent pilot, but luckily for her she had there also an emergency backup of all messages from the ship computer. Data were transferred into neural net of the new ship (paid by the insurance company) and Karina continued to original destination. However previous attacker was again waiting in the destination system!, but the outcome of encounter was this time different. The main difference was that Karina was not as much surprised, and she expected an attack when saw on radar a ship following her. During following attack, when shield of Mule collapsed, she immediately activated the silent mode, fired chaff and used very chaotic flight pattern till attacker stayed far behind. Escape was successfull, but _Mule's hull integrity was reduced below 50% ... "Enough is enough!", she thought in anger after succesfull landing, "I need some combat ship which can give a punch and survive at the same time!"

Karina used her exploration ship Bubo (Diamondback Explorer) to quickly reach nearest LYR exploited system Hamal and visited there shipyard on the Coriolis type station named Hermaszewski Dock. The seller was an old veteran which shortly looked at Karina and quietly told her: "Buy a vulture, then go visit Felicity Farseer and ask her for a "overcharghed" upgrade of powerplant in a special arrangement called "monstered". You can thank me later ...". After that he went away, and stunned Karina was staying alone at shipyard's shopping terminal. Karina have studied ships and theirs technical details during most of her time at the University, and therefore she did not needed too much time for discover that weak powerplant is just only one obvious weakness of the vulture. Karina has proceed with shoping, equipped her new ship by the best available equipment; then she checked energy priorities and disabled the energy input for all weapons and left only part of the defensive modules powered ... "all this stuff will be back on-line after tunning of the powerplant at Felicity workshop", she thought. Then she asked for permission to take-off, and gently pulled her Hornet out of the landing pad ... ship handling was looking really well and she enjoyed the "boost" while was leaving the station through the mailslot. "Flying in this ship will be a blast!", she thought enthusiastically when plotting the course to the Deciat system (home of Felicity Farseer).

Vulture named the "Hornet" was at first carefully tested in safe environment of the local Nav-Beacon and also in nearby asteroid ring with the support of the local authority forces and hired wingman. Then was ship upgraded by three basic engineers (Felicity, Elvira, and McQeen) and final combat test was done few days later in the hazardous resources extraction site (Haz-RES), in the Phiagre system. Karina was carefully scanning all ships appearing there, till she found lonely pirate with a bounty and attacked him. First real fight was not going easily at all, mainly due Karina's inexperience with ships controls used under pressure, but in the end the pirate vessel have exploded. Karina was realy tired but she felt strong satisfaction ... she is no longer just a weak target which can only flee from fight; now she can fight back if this will be needed!

After fight Karina have scanned the surrounding area and found numerous canisters marked as illegal cargo; all obviously were falling out from damaged cargo-hatch on the pirate vessel during the fight. Two of them were slowly and carefully tractored into small cargo_container installed into the Hornet. Karina wanted to deliver this illegal cargo to two different black markets; the reason for this were the informations about Engineer called the "Dweller", which was known for his support to the smugglers. For get an invite from him, and opening access to his specialised workshop (upgrades to power distributors and lasers weapons), was requested use of at least five different black-markets. Engineer Tod McQeen already proved to Karina that large multicanon with his upgrades is really deadly weapon; she now wanted similar improvement for large pulse laser installed as second weapon on the Hornet.

With full access to the Dweller had Karina now opened services of four engineers which were able to do upgrades to most of ship modules, and this supported the ability to succesfully perform more different tasks. With three hundreds of milions dolars were also opened possibilities for new ships purchases, but Karina decided to chose just only one new ship which however must allow her to do new things. One from these new activities was the mining ... She never tried to do it, but she already heard that it has need of more ship's internal modules for special mining equipment. The best candidate seemed mid-size Python, then T7 and then large Anaconda. But all these ships were either slow, too big and except T7 also very costly. Another option was Imperial Clipper which however requested to have higher imperial rank, and which had also suboptimal sizes of internal modules. The last choice was ship, which appeared on the markets only recently, called Krait Mk II. Karina spent longer time with studying of all available Krait's technical blueprints, and then she decided to give this ship a chance to prove its abilities in real. Karina again visited LYR space and soon she were proud owner of the "Amethyst". It was not small ship, handling was much tougher when compared with Hornet, but power hidden in thrusters of this ship, huge energy output from powerplant and amazing convergence of the weapons hardpoints were telling that this ship might be really good. The ability to use hangar with SLFs (ship launched fighters) was the proverbial cherry on the cake.

Karina accepted few mining operations and searched through her databases for nearest system with pristine mineral reserves. System Bhare seemed was the best candidate, it had not only planets with mettalic rings, but there were also ice rings which together were source of all known mined materials. In Bhare were also except one big station two smaller outposts, which one had all necessary services for support mining operations. Mining itself was going well, thrusters of the Amethyst offered good acceleration for quick asteroids prospecting and Karina has slowly learned how to do mining the most effective way.

Karina returned to Bhare few times, and during travels there and back she started search for more knowledge about the mining. She learned how to use filters installed on collector controllers which were now able ignore chosen materials; she learned also how to position her ship close to mined asteroids to increase the speed of collecting mined materials. She also found information about special weapon which had weaker extraction power but was able extract the ore from asteroids distant 2 km. Name of this weapon was Mining Lance and it was given as a reward to commanders which pledged to Zemina Torval which is one from high figures in the Imperium. "It will need few weeks to reach this weapon", thought Karina, "but I want it!" Later of the same day Karina pledged to Zemina Torval and accepted the risk of potencial hostile encounters with pilots serving under federation flag.

It was at the end of one mining session when ship computer announced incoming private message. There was hidden sender, but Karina knew well who is it; in the message was just short text: "Enjoy pledge to the Torval! , Karina. I'm now returning from small exploration trip with load of special micromaterials acquired at old ruins of civilisation called Guardians. We need meet soon, I have important information for you ..."

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Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

Karina's experience of piloting her new ship Type-6 Transporter called the "Mule_" had increasing rapidly; she right now FAOff docked at station Lovelace Terminal in the…]]>Wed, 18 Jul 2018 18:24:16 +0000

Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

Karina's experience of piloting her new ship Type-6 Transporter called the "Mule_" had increasing rapidly; she right now FAOff docked at station Lovelace Terminal in the LFT 1209 system, when suddenly sounded a deep beep tone announcing incoming personal message. Quick look on communicator revealed real surprise, it was message from her father. He asked for urgent help in system CD-61 6801: "Can you please go there and do a couple of missions for one from local factions called The Sovereign Justice Collective (SJC)? ... I'll explain details later", was on the message end ... "How typical", smiled Karina. When she woke up this morning she wondered what will do next and this message offered her a specific activity. She started navigation computer, opened map of the galaxy and set the destination course: Bus Port in CD-61 680 system.

The first meetings with the SJC official representatives and later also "indpendent" commanders which were supporting that faction were a real suprise for Karina. She had only once used a phrase which she had from her father: "Ex U****a", and the amount of support that she received was unbeliavable. Income made in this single day was few times more as she had in her assets one day before! She was able not only purchase bigger trading ship - Type-7 Transporter which she named the "Panda", but also earned enough cash for thinking about even bigger and better ships. And of course there still was invitation to visit Felicity and the McQuinn, which was another mysterious person. Suddenly she had available so much new activities and was needed to decide which will be first and which will be the last. The commanders, which were selflessly helping her, also gave her few further useful advices and also suggested to visit certain offices on the Greeboski station in Phiagree, if she would like know more about their "independent" organisation. "I can do that", she thought, "but for now I need to go my own way alone ... but if these nice commanders will need help again, then I will come."

Karinda made a decision to visit as first Ms Felicity Farseer. But her homestead was far away and there was also a note about the need to bring one unit of Meta-Alloys (MA). She started study data sources which she received during her work for SJC, and it revealed more different sources of MA, but all these were in Pleiades region which was more as 400 ly far away. "I need specialised exploration vessel" thought Karina and that was the moment when was started preparations of the "Bubo" ship. As first she moved into Li Young-Rui (shortuct Lyr, Lyr is one from minor Powers in ED) exploited space where all ships and equipment have 15% discount and purchased there small Diamondback Explorer (DBX). Jump-range of the DBX was, with light equipment and with the best A grade frameshift drive (FSD), better as 30 ly and the travel to the Pleiades region was suddenly only a longer walk in the park.

The Barnacle locations were all on given coordinates and everything looked so easy, until a moment when she were approaching one from Barnacle sites marked as "Ripe". Ships scaners were not showing any signs of possible danger, when suddenly sounded an missiles attack warning. Karina was able in such short time only switch ship's power into shields, which were in next moment struck with salvo of missiles. On radar for a moment appeared hostile target, but that one have in next moment vanished and this only rised up confusion of Karina. She used boost of engines to quickly move her Bubo behind nearby hill. She carefully landed, deployed the SRV and have very slowly approaching to the site where she got so warm welcome. The specialised radar mounted on the SRV finally revealed what is going on ... the site was guarded with group of small drones. She returned to the ship, which was luckily armed with two medium pulse lasers and gimballed large multicanon. Now was she able with manual aiming, while she was constantly switching ship's power priorities between the shields (when were missiles inbound) and weapons (when target appeared for short time on radar), to use ship weapons and slowly one by one destroy all these dangerous drones. Harvesting the MA and also other micromaterials (raw) appearing on the site was then with SRV an easy task.

Later visit on Farseer residence was going well and "Bubo" got upgrades to few systems; the most noticable was upgrade to the FSD jump range (increasing single jump to almost 50 ly) and upgrade to ship thrusters (clean thrusters) which now worked much more efficiently while producing less heat. Bubo had now much better jump range, slightly better power output from powerplant, better radar detection and improved engines. All this needed bigger part of already accumulated micromaterials, but this effort had clearly visible results and Karina decided learn more about "Engineers" ... "My ships may be smaller and less strong", she thought, "but if they will be more difficult to detect, then I can be much more in safe. Heat produced by ship parts is the key to this and therefore I need to learn more how it works!" The surrounding space around her ship was still dangerous, but Karina now had feel much more confident.

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Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

Karina spent few more hours as the "delivery girl" and learned few good lessons. One of them was about the need to always check the mission details related to the…]]>Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:49:20 +0000

Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

Karina spent few more hours as the "delivery girl" and learned few good lessons. One of them was about the need to always check the mission details related to the destination station distance from the system entry star; everything distant more as 10k light seconds (ls) is not worth the extra money because it needs too much flight time in the supercruise. Another hard learned "lesson" was about the need to disable the external flight controller (notebook touchpad) which unwanted use resulted in accidental serie of shots into the station wall during docking maneuver. Station response to it was lethal ... numerous defense turrets opened fire. Karina's ship shaked, its canopy broke almost instantly and followed an emergency ejection of the pilot's escape capsule.

Few hours later she awakened in the medical tank and then learned from local doc that he is at the Detention Megaship. Luckily, she had enough money to pay the insurance, and the local office of the insurance company already have sent her new ship. She went first to local security office where have paid off the fine for station attack, and then headed into docks to check her "new" ship. Short check confirmed that all ship's systems are identical quality and level, ... however Karina still felt deep sorrow for the loss of the original Beetle. "I really want to avoid repeating of this experience", she thought.

Latest affairs forced her to think more serious about finances ... it seemed more obvious now, that the possibility to lose a ship is not something what could not happen. She returned from detention centre and were again checking the list of offered missions ... and then she noticed it: it was an generously paid mission asking surgical strike against skimmers on planet surface. What was the most interesting on this type of mission was the fact, that it was needed only use of small surface vehicle (SRV). Type of ship used as SRV carrier was practically irrelevant if the pilot was careful enough and left his ship in safe distance. What was even more interesting was that there were more customers (factions representatives) asking for attack on the same skimmers. Was about time to find how it works in real.

Multiple surface missions against skimmers were finished and Karina had enough occasions to improve her SRV's driving skills. Also her finances have raised up nicely. She learned the differences between sound and graphic patterns showed on SRV radar; and this new skill resulted in collecting of different micro-materials which can be for example used fo refuel, repair or rearm of the SRV. There was also one hidden bonus, which was revealed when Karina received personal message from Pilots Federation. They informed her that she had reached the rank Scout (Exploration). And then came one another surprise, it was personal invite to visit Felicity Farseer. Karina did not know for sure who Felicity is, but she heard already some rumors about persons called "The Engineers". "It may be worth to visit her", thought Karina, but there was something else, what she want to do earlier ... her assets rised up enough to allow her think about new better ship.

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Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

The first feelings when she entered the ship and for the first time sat in the real pilot chair were unforgettable. She already had decent practice with piloting from…]]>Sun, 24 Jun 2018 06:43:26 +0000

Note: articles in this blog are often referencing to biography of this character.

The first feelings when she entered the ship and for the first time sat in the real pilot chair were unforgettable. She already had decent practice with piloting from space ships simulators at the university, but this now was something very different, it was real! First was needed resolve few administration steps which were displayed on the HUD main screen and waiting for approval. One of them was about the ship name (In-game -> Outfiting/Livery): "What name should I choose", she was thinking for a moment and then suddenly came an Idea ..."Beetle" fits here well and I like it! The most difficult part of "take off" is behind me", she thought with a smile

While sat in the cockpit she started study her ship's details on an technical blueprint displayed on one from several cockpit's displays. "Yeah, that's typical for him (Father), all the equipment only very basic and on top of that loaned. It looks like he want me to start from the scratch", murmured, but then she smiled again: "no problem, it will be fun and I do not want any further gifts or help .. or at least not in nearest future". All systems looked functional, preflight check was passes succesfully. "Ready to go", she thought, but first lets see if local employers (Mission Board) have also something for inexperienced pilot like me.

The Mission Board was offering numerous missions, but most of them were not for newbie pilot with basic ship. But when she looked the list of missions for a second time thoroughly, she found few which were about messages delivery (and with possibility of bonuses). There were not needed any money to be invested and also there was no need for cargo space ... well, she had one basic cargo module with 2 tons of cargo space and one mission asked for transport_ of two units (tons) of Indite. She decided to accept this cargo transport_ mission and added also two missions asking delivery of boom message. The most limiting for missions was the "E" grade Frameshift Drive (FSD) installed on Beetle; max jump range 7 light years (ly) was very bad, "here I will need do upgrading first", she thought.

It was only ten hours later, when Beetle safely landed at the Dahan main Starport, but it was big life changer for Karina. Her's ship was now equipped with mostly "A" grade equipment, gimballed lasers showed signs of usage, and personal bank account tied with the ship contained almost one million dollars. New FSD installed on the ship significantly improved jump range up to almost 16 light years (ly), and thrusters had much deeper tone with significantly better flight characteristics. Karina herself have changed even more, she had now much better understanding of her father, and she also learned that the universe can be also dangerous ... pirates, killers, draconic flight regulations on the space starports, unspoken mysteries and more ... so much new things for learning/reveal, so much new places which can be visited. Karina decided to go back to her Mother and tell her that she will leave from the Dahan for some time. She knew that will return one day, but the stars visible on the dark sky were calling her so much ...